What ever happened to White Dwarf Battle Reports? I always thought they were cool, especially the really in-depth ones like the Deathwatch versus the Tyranids and stuff. The modern ones are kind of lame.
What ever happened to White Dwarf Battle Reports? I always thought they were cool, especially the really in-depth ones like the Deathwatch versus the Tyranids and stuff. The modern ones are kind of lame.
Post a recent one so we can compare.
Unfortunately I don't have magazine scans.
Are those steel legion stormtroopers?
They're painted to match, but those were just the, at the time, current metal storm troopers. Released in 2000 I think.
I've just never seen them painted outside of inquisition colors since metal kasrkin had pushed them out of guard by the time I started playing
Yeah, I never did care for the kasrkin, greatly preferred the stormtrooper sculpts over them. Kicking myself a bit at selling mine off years ago, but I've long since stopped playing 40k. Hopefully they're still getting used now.
This unironically used to be the best part of White Dwarf
Totally agree, they perfected it with the boxes representing units, arrows etc for each turn and hit markers. It was easy to follow and understandable. Now its a fricking mess, they'll show you pictures of some turns and not others. Its fancy graphics and a shitty attempt at narrative writing. It honestly used to be my fav part of the magazine. I started buying magazines again when they relaunched like 2 years back and while it was much improved over the utter dogshit the magazine had become it still wasnt as good as it used to be.
Why the frick did they change from a player's perspective to a narrative one? Worst mistake, now there's no value in White Dwarfs.
IIRC, they stopped doing battle reports for a while because people could use the older style to figure out the points costs of units for it and not buy codexes. The newer ones are more like an ad
This has to be nonsense, since you could just walk into a GW and read the customer copy of any codex at any time..
I mean, something that nonsensical would be fairly in character for GW. Not saying I believe it outright, but this is the same company that decided they were a "collectibles company" and didn't need to focus too much on the games for a while.
Battle reports then:
>matter of fact with some prosaic flourishes explaining exact rolls and damage
>clear pictures to show the moment-to moment gameplay
>birds eye disgrams showing unit positions and movement for visual aids of the overall turn
Battle reports now
>gloss over dice rolls
>Cinematic photography with smoke machines and lighting, models moved out of position to make for more "exciting" pictures
>report is vague on details, heavy on narrative
>no diagrams, just more photos to show off the models
>just generally hard to follow
IT didnt need to bother typing a response since you nailed all the points perfectly,
Pretty much. The old wfb reps with the tactical maps as well as tactical advice were golden, especially if both armies were painted by the guys playing it rather than being the studios
The old ones used to have custom terrain/tables, conversions, and interesting scenarios/ campaigns. Now it's just an advertisement.
Frick, i remember that WD. Also that huge armageddon Poster.
>tfw sorted out my White Dwarfs the other day
>found my Nemesis Crown WD supplement, but can't find my Fall of Medusa V one, meaning it probably got binned
🙁
>probably got binned
>Every WD from 1995 to 2006
>Every codex and army book from 2nd 40K/4th WFB to '06.
>Every Citadel Journal, Town Crier etc 'zine from the same period.
>Carefully packed away in sealed plastic boxes in the attic for safe keeping when I went to university.
>Came back after first semester and see the plastic boxes stacked in the garage, empty.
>What happened to my collection mum?
>Oh I thought you were done with all your toys so I threw them away.
Didn't even give them to a family friend's kid or a charity shop, literally threw in them in the bin. Didn't think "hmm they've gone to a lot of trouble to keep these safe and dry and neatly stored away, they might plan to keep them". Just about murdered the silly old c**t.
Fuuuuuck lad, that's wounding, my dad's parents did similar to him with old British comics like the Beano
If you didnt slap that stupid c**t across the face you have no balls.
I appreciate that they tried harder, but it was always just an advertisement.
The real reason that they stopped doing batreps is because they realized their big money makers don't play the game, and people who care about that stuff can find 3rd parties doing it on youtube anyway.
Youtube is shit, 40k isn't watchable because there aren't that many decisions to make. Warmachine makes much better battle reports because there's more to the game and it's fast.
Unironically people were reverse engineering armies from battle reports and stopped buying codexes. This is why you don't see dice rolls anymore.
Please post
-The eldar raid on orkimedes lab from Apocalypse
-The governors evacuation during Medusa V from white dwarf
Thank you
Speaking of Medusa V, does anyone know which doctrines the Vostroyans were supposed to take using the 3.5 codex?
Haven't been good since they quit using hand painted backdrops for the studio photos and awkward midgame candid shots.
Yea, remember back in the day when the new wd dropped in the box! Good times! Long before YouTube and all this free content we see today, made it special to read and just have a great time with friends.
I particularly remember "a tale of 4 gamers" report, that was an awesome article on how to start your very own warhammer army, starting slow with a maximum budget that you where allowed to spend each month. And the 4 players built, painted and played the armies in batreps later on. Was great.
Now days though, you get free, on demand batreps any time you want, with what ever setup you want. Instant gratification, though great, its kind of sad.
>Now days though, you get free, on demand batreps any time you want, with what ever setup you want. Instant gratification, though great, its kind of sad.
Honestly I don't find it sad, it's incredible what we have at our fingertips now. I know nostalgia is great but the shear variety of content we have is great. Want a couple guys playing in their garage battle reports? Want a professional sports casted one with play by plays and 3d highlights? How about one where the host takes her top off after turn 2? Its all out there
>How about one where the host takes her top off after turn 2?
>have a wide variety of things you don't want, its great!
I used to love the "Tale of 4 Gamers" they'd do for a few months in White Dwarf.
They'd get non-Studio staff from like the accounts department to take part too, and they'd be like "My budget is £25 a month, so I got a couple of blisters, a £15 box of plastics, and filled the rest out with Bitz Catalogue orders, I also rescued these old monopose Beastmen from a bin outside Lenton HQ"
I saw a newer Tale of 4 Gamers and there was no mention of budget, no scrambling around for bitz, it was just sanitised and dull.
Oh frick, I remember reading that one and thinking it was a super neat idea since not only it showed you how to make an army on a budget, different levels of skill and clever conversions, but this one also promoted the Lustria campaign.
Good times
I tried all evening to buy a WD in Canberra but it seems most newsagents don't stock it anymore. No wonder since it's no longer a hobby magazine incorporating a sales catalogue, but instead some sort of in-universe lorefest.
Old WD was amazing, the terrain tutorials were fantastic. Here’s how to make cool terriain with things you can find under the sink go have fun, compared to now where it’s just a sales catalog.
What they're missing is that showing how to do conversions alongside pre-made terrain made people DO BOTH synergistically.
Although reverse engineering is possible, it is far easier to pirate, walk into a game store, or ask a friend to borrow their copy. I just don't think that this is a credible argument from GW
It's no more about Hobby. It's about the market.